Thoughts and Things
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: Of all Steph's intriguing (annoying) habits, writing in those dang journals is what annoys Paul most of all. - One-shot.


The first time he caught her doing it, he sorta found it too weird to say much about it and kind of just tried to forget about it.

The second time he stumbled upon it, he couldn't help it. Their relationship was still new and rocky, but… He couldn't help ribbing her mercilessly.

He kind of forgot about it after that. Stephanie took to doing it away from him (he had been rather relentless in his teasing) and, with so much else going on constantly, it just slipped his mind.

Until he accidentally reminded himself of it, one day when he was over at Steph's place, clearing out part of her dresser so that he could shove some of his own things in there.

Stephanie was supposed to have cleaned out a spot for his stuff, before he got there, but she was locked off in the guest bedroom, on her computer in there, doing something for work, so he had to do _something_ while he waited for her.

They were actually in the process of taking pretty big steps in their relationship. Hence the moving some of his stuff in. A lot of hers was already in his house in New Hampshire too.

Comfortable was too stringent, even, for what they had going on since he returned from his quad injury.

Anyhow, Steph was working on something and he was in her bedroom, going through her dresser, when he just found it, sitting there.

A journal.

It wasn't immediate, but damn near to it, he knew exactly what it was.

"Why would she keep this in her sock drawer?" he grumbled to himself as he sat it aside, atop the dresser, along with the other stuff he'd pulled out. "Weirdo."

Still, as he put his stuff away, he kept glancing up at the journal, where it sat, on top of the socks and underwear that Paul had cleared out. It had been dorky before (it still was), but now that he knew Steph a bit better, it was actually kind of fitting. Because she was a dork. A major one.

"You had to choose my underwear drawer even though it's, like, one of the smallest drawers because-"

"So that I could go through all your thongs. Duh."

"Duh."

He gave her a big, cheesy smile when she came into the room, finished up, it seemed, with whatever it was she'd been doing. He was too, as he just sat there on the edge of her bed, waiting. Steph's eyes had immediately fallen to her socks and underwear and where they sat, on the top of the dresser, trying to figure out where she was going to stow them away now that he had his own space in there. As he grinned though, her eyes fell on him and she found herself doing the same...until she noticed what was in his lap.

"What are you-"

"I'm readin', woman. Sheesh. You sure write a lot."

"Paul, give me that!"

He didn't even have it open, actually, so when she came to snatch it, he just let her take it. "You had it in your sock drawer. Hiding it from me or something?"

"Considering how much of an ass you were last time," she grumbled as, turning from him, she went to shove it in a different drawer in her dresser, "I don't even know why you need to ask that."

"Oh, making jokes now is being an ass?"

"You were one and you know it, so don't even act like you don't."

Leaning forwards there, on the end of her bed, he watched as she peeked into his new drawers, as if to be sure that he'd done as she asked. Finding everything folded (that was her one demand; he could have two drawers, but he wasn't just going to be shoving things into them), she turned to face him.

"You write about me? Babe?"

"Paul-"

"I'm not gonna mess with you about it." He was still grinning too. "I think it's silly and cute. You're cute."

But she was apprehensive, he could tell, and later that day, when he glanced in that dresser drawer her saw her shove it in, it was gone; she'd hidden it away somewhere else.

His chick was so silly.

He decided then not to bother her much about it. With them staying in their off days at either his place or hers, together, always then, he noticed more and more her writing things down, typically after their random dates (honestly, when they had nothing to do, they both enjoyed laying around the house more than going out; just being around one another was nice) or, more than once, he'd caught her furiously writing things down after a fight.

It became kind of a nagging desire to find out just what it was that she was writing about. He thought about it a few times, as he had, over time, managed to figure out where she kept her journals (plural for the old ones that she kept too, for some reason; he had to wonder when the last time that she actually went back and read through them would be, but he also wasn't a chick, so maybe he just didn't understand it), but always figured that it was too much of an invasion of privacy.

And...what if he didn't like what he found? It wasn't so much that he didn't trust her, but if he did stumble upon something, even something minor, he couldn't bring it up to her without admitting that he had looked and then what? Then there was no trust, he'd be carrying around whatever he found, she'd be pissed that he was looking into her personal writing and it would just be…

He and Steph were never like that. Honest. For a couple that was bred through deceit, with one another, they were actually pretty open and secure with. After those first few months post secrecy and lying, they were actually kinda...normal. For as normal as two people that's lives were played out on the road and TV. Or as normal as when one person was doing that and the other was laid up in a hotel room, nursing a torn quad.

They were normal for them.

So he didn't go behind her back about it.

He just told her, one days as they were hanging out in a motel room after a show, that if she wanted to write about all that had gone on that night in her stupid little notebook, she could.

Steph, when he said that, was actually in the bathroom, door open, brushing her teeth. Toothbrush still hanging from foaming mouth, she turned to stare in at him. He just shrugged at her as he stretched out on the bed, icing a contusion on his thigh.

"Only if you wanna. I won't...peek at it or anything. If you don't want me to." Then he gave her a bit grin. "I mean, I still think it's childish-"

"Paul," she complained, some toothpaste dribbling down her chin as she griped. Oddly enough, that was kind hot…

Hmmm…

"But that's fine," he went on as he adjusted the icepack over his bruise. "Because, you know, you're kinda…silly and childish and I… I don't mean it in a bad way, is what I'm trying to tell you. That's just you. You don't gotta be embarrassed about it. I don't hide from you how meticulously I care for my hair and nails."

"I wish you would."

"Steph-"

She'd turned to spit then, in the sink, before addressing him again with, "Just drop it."

"Okay." He really didn't wanna talk about it right then anyways. "Now that your mouth is all clean, come dirty it up. My bruise needs some attention."

"Your bruise? Or your-"

"Well, both."

"Uh-huh."

She didn't that night, but they were both rather beat anyways, from dealing with show shit. And then the next few nights were spent away from one another. Far away. Steph was sticking around in Connecticut while the show went over seas for a bit, so it was phone calls only.

That first night they were together again, Paul just wanted to sleep and Steph had some stupid movie on DVD that she wanted to watch, so they compromised by stretching out on the couch together and getting both things done.

Paul had fallen asleep right from the start, feet propped up on the coffee table, snoring rather loudly. Steph thought he was coming down with a cold, but as her boyfriend told her, he didn't get sick so that was impossible.

It was his snores, however, or choking on them rather, that awoke the man. Startling himself, he shook his head from side to side, as if confused. Then his eyes settled on their living room television and he relaxed.

Steph's feet weren't in his lap anymore, resting instead against his thigh as she sat with her knees up beside him. Her movie had gone off and the news was on, but she wasn't paying attention to that.

Rather, she had that notebook out.

She felt his eyes, of course, because she always knew when he was looking at her, but when her blues met his darks, he only gave her a sleepy smile.

"I feel dead," was all he said, not even commenting on what she was doing. Steph giggled before closing the journal and moving to set it, along with the pen, on the coffee table next to his feet.

"Let me go make you tea or something, okay? And maybe get some medicine in you."

"If it's a cold, then I can't beat it."

"Oh, so now we admit that we can get a cold, do we?"

Snort. "Just make me some tea, woman."

"Oh, you're lucky I love you."

Very lucky. He knew that.

When she came back though with some pills and a cup for him, he saw that her eyes fell to the notebook which still sat in the exact same position as it had. He hadn't touched it.

Which is probably the reason that that slowly became their norm.

Steph had no problem with writing around him. She'd do it in bed, when they were hanging out in a hotel room, or, a lot of the time, when they were both at home at the same time and were wasting their free time resting on the couch together.

Not that it in any way stopped piquing his curiosity, because it did. Even more so, perhaps. But Steph seemed to think that it was a very private matter and, well, it wasn't worth an argument.

He didn't ask her to read them, not once, until the night after he proposed.

He hammed it up real well and real big. In a way that she would definitely eat up (even if he felt it was kind of corny, it being Valentine's Day and all…) and, obviously, want to memorialize in her damn journals.

And even though she'd showered him with praises for the whole surprise he just...wanted to know.

They'd both woken up before the alarm that morning, her because she was still all giddy and shit and him because, well, she kind of woke him up, shifting around so much.

Still, they were both very much so caught up in the afterglow, even hours out, over the entire thing and, after some rather languid making out, he muttered against her lips, "So when do I get to look at it?"

"Look at what?" Steph asked in that suggestive tone that she thought was coy; it wasn't, but he liked it anyways. "Paul?"

Reaching a hand out, he rested it against her warm cheek, pad of his thumb feeling rather rough against it as he stroked her pale flesh. Softly, he whispered, "Your little diary thingy."

Her smile fell rather quickly. "It's not a...diary. I'm not twelve."

"I'd hope not. After what we did last night, I'd be looking at a pretty stiff sentence."

"You're so stupid."

"Completely," he agreed, even nodding his head. "But I'm also gonna be your husband now. Right?"

That got the grin back. Nodding her own head, Steph hummed in agreement.

"Then what's yours is mine." His tone was absolute on that. "Let me look at your diary."

"It's not a-"

"I wanna see it."

"Paul-"

"I could have just sneaked some peeks at it, you know," he told her as she shoved his hand off her face finally. He only let it fall as he continued to stare into her eyes, regardless of the annoyance he found there. "A lot of them. But I didn't."

"Because it was wrong."

"Because you would have yelled at me if I did."

He was all about honesty, apparently.

"What difference does it make to you anyways?" she asked as she rolled then, out of the bed. She had slipped on a baggy t-shirt at some point, so the imagery he got from this wasn't the best, but watching her walk over to the dresser to retrieve the journal from atop of it made up for that (kind of sorta). "What I write down?"

"I dunno. I'm just curious. Very curious. For years."

"I tell you everything I'm thinking already." And for as much as the woman talked, he had to believe her on that. "Why do you wanna see it all written down?"

"Why do you not want me to see it?"

Because he'd been a douche about it, three years ago, when they were both still hardly dating and teased her over it perhaps a tad too much.

More like a lot too much.

"I don't care if you do or not," was her only response as, with a shrug, she came back to bed, holding the thing out to him. "You're the one making it into a big deal."

But he only let it fall to the bed, the notebook, instead grinning over at her widely. "You wanna fuck on it?"

"Paul-"

"Let's fuck on everything! In celebration."

"You're annoying."

"I love you though." That came out a lot quieter than his previous exclamation. "You know."

"I know." She made a face too as, when he shifted closer, his stomach rumbled, just a bit. "I also know you're hungry."

"Deathly." He couldn't help the wink. "You could just let me eat you though, if you wanna."

"I don't though."

"Liar."

"You want an egg?" She was tumbling out of bed again. "Babe?"

" _An_ egg? No. I want twelve."

"Two."

"Eleven."

"Three."

"Twenty."

"Three," she decided, leaving him behind in their bedroom. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to follow or not, but he didn't. He'd serviced her the night before; it was his turn to get shown some appreciation.

Rolling onto his back, there was hardly thought in it at all as Paul lifted the journal up and promptly….dropped it back down.

"Maybe another day," he grumbled as he shoved out of bed and went to at least tug on some boxers. He and Steph didn't always get a chance to eat breakfast together, in their own home; he wasn't missing an opportunity to bug the hell out of her during it.

It became kind of a none issue for Paul then, really, now that she'd more or less given him permission to go through it if he wished. And he did, eventually, of course, because if she wasn't going to get all pissy over it, perhaps just a bit embarrassed, then why the hell wouldn't he?

Honestly, after all that build up, he was kind of disappointed.

As she'd said, a lot of it was just a less jumbled version of what she griped daily about to him. He hardly ever glanced through it and, even when he did, rarely found anything of interest.

Over time, Steph actually found it less and less to be what she enjoyed doing to remind herself of the past.

Rather, around the time their first daughter was born, she took up a far more annoying hobby.

"Why do you like this?" he grumbled on more than one occasion, when he'd find her busy organizing all of the photos (and there were a damn lot) that she'd taken recently of the baby or them, into one of her scrapbooks. "Just keep all the photos in a random drawer and look at them during the holidays like a normal person."

"Why does it bug you?" was her typical retort.

"It doesn't." And it didn't. It just felt like a bit of a waste of time. "But, I mean, there has to be better ways of doing this now, right? Ninety percent of these had to be printed off, from a digital camera, that could have just as easily been hooked up to your computer to store them there. To actually sit down and put them on pages and shit and… Doesn't it feel antiquated to you? Or something?"

Gee, like writing her thoughts down on damn paper rather than on a computer too?

"No."

Then he'd stare at her. Hard. Before, with a sigh, shaking his head and mumbling something along the lines of, "Do what you want."

Which, obviously, was happening anyways, but she appreciated the consent.

Paul didn't appreciate it, any of it, really, until his daughters were old enough to care about pictures. He actually rather enjoyed it then.

It wasn't frequent or anything, because that would take the fun out of the whole thing, but there were times when both he and Steph had absolutely nothing to do (the moon couldn't be bluer than when those times rolled around) and, if requested, would go get one of her stupid scrapbooks to look over. Steph had a lot of junk in them too, other than just photos. Like drawings the kids had done and scraps of paper they'd scribbled on and that sorta crap.

They ate it up though. All three of them. They liked flipping through and looking at pictures of them as babies and listening to their parents explain each situation that had been snapped. They liked even better the stray photos of from before they were born that Steph would stick in there and any and all ones of Bluto, their dog (Paul's wife took a lot of those too).

Listening one day to her tell Murphy, their middle daughter, all about the photo she'd gotten of the girl right after her first steps, Paul finally felt as if he got it; he understood it. He knew why his wife was so obsessive over all the momentous (and not so important) times being marked down and treasured.

It was all she knew. From the time she was a kid, it was an important part of her life. Old matches were kept and archived to be reviewed and studied by the future generations, promos were to be reviewed so that stars could find their own styles and, most of all, it all happened so fast, so continuously, that you had to keep something to remember each moment by, to remind you of it, because if you didn't, another would just come along and replace it before you had a chance to form a true memory.

Their personal life wasn't so different. Even when the girls were still in diapers, they were constantly on the move. Both of them. Steph never truly stopped working and he even in his down periods, stricken with injury, was up at the office, doing something. Their life was almost ruled by the company, and though not quite completely, it certainly had a tight vice on them.

She was different than him. Memories for him were great and all, but he was always looking forwards, even passed the present. Steph though loved to retell stories of superstars and events past; he was a dreamer and she was a nostalgist. He remembered the important stuff and was content with forgetting the old; she needed to hold onto the little things a bit more than him.

There was nothing wrong with either of those.

And as he sat there hearing, oh, the Murphy walking story for the umpteenth time, he only held his wiggly youngest daughter in his lap (Vaughn, too, had heard this one too many times; they all had, honestly, except Murph) and grinned over at his wife as she spoke, holding the only one listening in her lap. Aurora, their oldest, was bouncing a bit, annoyed that they were stopped on that photo _again_ and rather impatient over it, but obedient as ever.

Paul distracted Steph too, as he smiled at her. Enough so that, to the annoyance of the little girl in her lap, she stopped mid-sentence.

"What?" she griped in jest, making a face over at him. "Paul?"

Shaking his head, he snuggled Vaughn up real close to him and said, "Nothin'. I'm just...enjoying hearing you talk."

"Oh, right, sure."

"It's true."

'Mommy," their middle daughter complained, annoyed that her special story had been cut off, regardless of the fact she probably could tell it herself by that point, she'd heard it so much.

Still, giving her husband one last long glance, she went back to grinning down at Murphy and, eventually, they reached the end of that story and the girls flipped through the scrapbook some more, hoping to find something else to talk about.

There was plenty to chose from.

And as he wasted the only two hours he was gonna get that day to himself, listening to stories that he was typically around for anyways, Paul only grinned. Not just for his girls and wife's sake because…

Steph was a lot of things sometimes, but was always, certainly his better half. Keeping records of things that one day, when maybe he couldn't recall as well the things that he always thought he would, definitely fell into the category.

"That one?" Steph giggled as, that time, their oldest pointed out a photo. Paul hardly even looked at it, just shut his eyes and took to listening, finding it far better than waiting around and hoping that, one day, she might let him see just what she was writing down, never rightly knowing it was almost a parrot of what she was telling him. "Well, let's see..."

* * *

 **This was another request suggestion/request fic with the topic being some of the things that Steph covered in her book q &a, where she stated that she liked scrapbooking or whatever. **

**A lot of you guys have asked for stuff, which is great, but I'm getting to them in a sort of random order, so if it takes me awhile to reach yours, don't worry, I'm working on it.**


End file.
